Big day today. We got Nathan’s first progress report with actual grades (not adjectives, like in kindergarten). Here it is:
Naturally I immediately demanded to know why he didn’t get 102 on all of his spelling assignments, and when he didn’t have a good answer, I grounded him from the Wii for a week. In this house, absolute perfection plus any available bonus credit is the minimum. Meet that minimum, or suffer the consequences.
No, no, you didn’t really think I was serious. We are very proud of him, and told him so.
Grades may be a bit tricky for me going forward as a parent. My dad was usually pretty good at determining when my grades didn’t match my potential, and that’s really the key, I think. I’m never going to be a dad who explicitly demands all As. However, I am going to be a dad who demands that of which a kid is capable, and if that happens to be all As, then so be it. It’s a pretty easy call right now, but it’ll definitely get tougher.
Nathan’s heard for more than a year now that going to school is his job just as certainly as technical writing is mine, and that when it comes to prioritizing tasks, schoolwork is going to win nearly all the time. Despite that, we had a little upheaval settling into a homework routine. (He doesn’t have much, but he has some.) Lea’s done a wonderful job not only helping him track his assignments, but helping him learn to budget his time. He’s getting there. I think it’s beginning to click for him that getting it out of the way early in the evening is better all the way around.
(Whether this lesson will stick in several years, when he may have two or three hours of homework from time to time, remains to be seen.)
Great job, Nathan. Many more just like this, please?
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Ironic omission, don’t you think? Made me wonder if someone didn’t do it on purpose.
Ah, report cards.
I grew up in a “we only want you to do the best you can, but that had better be straight A’s all the time” kind of household. I do look my children’s at grades but, as I teacher, I know that they can be a terrible assessment of a student’s true talent. The fact that I -and you and Lea- are mindful parents, though, means that we’ll have a pretty good idea, before the report cards even come home, of how our small people are doing in school.
Good job, Nathan!
I think you’ll be seeing a lot of report cards like that. Nathan and Aaron have parents who are involved in their children’s education. I wish there were more like you and Lea out there.
Mrs. Chili: Thanks. I appreciate what you’re saying about grades and what they reflect, but right or wrong, they are used in standard ways that can help or hurt, depending. Lessons about how the world works are valuable too.
Cheryl: Thanks. And welcome! Great to “see” you, one of my earliest and best online friends. 🙂